This invention relates to a fluid (gas or liquid) pressure transducer, and particularly to a blood pressure transducer.
Blood pressure transducers are known. See, for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,181 disclosing a disposable blood pressure transducer and U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,256 disclosing a blood pressure transducer having a disposable dome. Such transducers are complicated, expensive, and somewhat difficult to set up to provide assurance of a complete debubbling, that is, complete removal of air bubbles in the system. Transducers of the type described in the patents referred to above employ a silicon chip forming a pressure sensor, an elastomeric diaphragm on which the chip is mounted, a temperature compensation circuit, a light shield because of the sensitivity of the silicon chip, and a housing mounting all of the foregoing elements in such a way that they can be connected in line with the tubing to which the patient's catheter is connected. The system, including the transducer and tubing, is filled with a saline solution that drips slowly through the catheter, the catheter being inserted into the patient's blood vessel. Thus, the pressure in the blood vessel is transmitted directly via the saline solution through the tubing to the transducer. The sensor is electrically connected to a blood pressure monitor presenting a visual display of the patient's blood pressure.
Less complex in structure is a tubular sensor of U.S. Pat. No. 4,600,855. That system, however, requires a special tube and piezoelectric film surrounding the tube. A complex electric circuit is employed to energize the piezoelectric film to cause the tube to resonate and to monitor the frequencies of resonance.